DID HELEN ELOPE TO TROY? 297Helen was not in Ilium at any time during the siege, and thatwhat the Trojans harboured was not her real self, but onlyher "Uving image," e'/SwXov 'ifiirvow.^ The discoverer ofthis interesting fact was (so ran the slander) Stesichoms.Struck vrith bUndness after vmting an attack on Helen, herecovered his sight by composing a Palinodia.2 The ghost ofAchiUes, when raised by that most famous medium of antiquity,ApoUonius of Tyana, denied positively that Helen was inIlium. 3 If Mr. J. A. Symonds be right, " We fought for fame andPriam's wealth," and for naught else, then she " with thestar-like sorrows of immortal eyes " was neither causa causansnor any cause of the Fall of Troy. Perhaps " Priam's wealth "is but an intelUgent anticipation of Mr. Leaf's theory that theWar was fought for " The Freedom of the Sea " (Euxine),and, incidentally, the capture of another nation's profits. * Eurip., Hel., 34. ^ Plat., Phardi., 243A; Isokr., Hel,, 65; Pausanias, III. 19, 13. ' Op. cit., IV. 16. In his paUnode, of which a few Unes (frag. 32, Bergk*)are extant, Stesichorus asserts that it was not Helen herself, but only hersemblance or wraith, which Paris carried off to Troy. Greeks and Trojansslew one another for a mere phantom, while the real Helen never left Sparta.Hdt., 2, X12 ff., gives a rather different turn to the story. According to him,Helen eloped from Sparta with Paris, but was driven back by a storm toEgypt, where Paris told lies and was punished by Proteus. Euripides in hisHelena combines the two versions. Like Stesichorus, he makes the truanta mere phantom, an ' eloping angel.' Like Herodotus, he sends the realHelen to Egypt. Menelaus, who, escorting the phantom home from Troy,arrives in Egypt, is there confronted with the real Helen and is sadly puzzled.Just as he begins to think himself a bigamist, the misty Helen evaporates !